welfare states, family policies, and fertility in europe...
TRANSCRIPT
Stockholm University Linnaeus Center on
Social Policy and Family Dynamics in Europe, SPaDE
Welfare States, Family Policies,
and Fertility in Europe
Gerda Neyer
Working Paper 2012: 10
2
Welfare States, Family Policies, and Fertility in Europe*
Gerda Neyer
Stockholm University Demography Unit, Dept. of Sociology
Abstract: This contribution discusses the potentials of welfare-state approaches for fertility
research in Europe. Demographers mostly concentrate on family policies and their effects on
fertility. They usually find no fertility-elevating effects of individual family policies or only
small effects on the aggregate level. This has led them to turn their attention instead to welfare
states and to national configurations of social and family policies. In this contribution, I argue
that welfare-state and single-policy approaches complement each other and that both are
needed for a better understanding of fertility developments. I outline the main concepts of the
welfare state and their usefulness for fertility research, underlining two aspects in particular:
First, the relative persistence of the orientation of a welfare state provides a framework to
assess the effects of policies and policy changes across countries and over time. Second,
different welfare states are associated with different labor-market and educational systems,
which allows us to view fertility behavior within a framework of interrelated complementary
institutions.
*This paper is also available as a Stockholm Research Report in Demography
3
1 Fertility developments in Europe
Over the last forty years of the twentieth century, period fertility developments in Europe
were characterized by two specific trends, namely the decline of fertility to below the
replacement level (i.e. to a Total Fertility Rate below 2.1) and the movement from
intraregional diversity to intraregional homogeneity (Neyer 2003). The decline of the TFR
affected all of Europe. In many countries, the TFR dropped to very low levels (below 1.5) or
even to lowest-low levels (below 1.3). Some countries experienced the decline in the late
1970s and early 1980s, others encountered a drop only in the 1990s. At the end of the 20th
century, all European countries had a TFR below the replacement level, and in roughly two-
thirds of the countries the TFR was below 1.5. Overall, about three-quarters of the European
population lived in societies with such a low fertility (Frejka and Sobotka 2008, 17).
During the first decade of the 21st century, the TFR rose again in almost all major European
regions. By 2008, no European country had a lowest-low fertility level and only eight
countries had a TFR below 1.4. Another eight countries even reached highest-low fertility
levels (TFR 1.85 or above; Eurostat 2010, Figure 1). The increase proved not to be the same
across Europe. Contrary to developments in most of Western Europe, the TFRs of the
German-speaking countries (Germany and Austria) as well as of neighboring Switzerland
failed to increase from their very low levels, while in some high-fertility countries (France,
Sweden, the UK) the increase was larger in absolute terms than what many other countries
experienced (Goldstein et al. 2009, 671). In Central and Eastern Europe, the onset and the
range of the increase varied greatly (Goldstein et al. 2009, 669). With the subsequent
economic crisis, many affected countries lost their gains in the TFR (Sobotka et al. 2011).
4
Figure 1: Period total fertility in major regions of Europe and in the United States, 1950-2006
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Pe
rio
d T
FR
EuropeNorthern EuropeSouthern Europe Central-Eastern Europe German-speakingWestern Europe Eastern EuropeUnited States
Lowest-low fertility
Replacement
threshold
Source: Frejka and Sobotka 2008, 21.
Notes: Data are weighted by the population size of given countries and regions. Countries are grouped into
regions as follows:
Western Europe: Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom;
German-speaking countries: Austria, Germany, and Switzerland;
Northern Europe: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden;
Southern Europe: Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain;
Central-Eastern Europe: Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia & Kosovo;
Eastern Europe: Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.
The general fertility decline of the last four decades of the 20th
century was accompanied by a
process of regional convergence. In the 1960s, Europe‟s fertility pattern was rather dispersed
and showed marked differences in fertility levels even between countries in the same region.
By the beginning of the 21st century, fertility levels had moved towards greater homogeneity
within regions. At the same time fertility differences between regions had not diminished;
they had remained stable or had even increased slightly (Neyer 2003). Due to the uneven
increase in the TFR at the beginning of the 21st century the differences in fertility levels
among European regions have not diminished. The regional disparity between the high-
fertility regions (the Nordic countries, France, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK) and the
low-fertility regions (the German-speaking countries, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe)
5
has rather persisted or has even become more pronounced (Frejka and Sobotka 2008;
Goldstein et al. 2009).
Low fertility and distinct regional differences are not a new phenomenon in Europe. During
the first decades of the 20th
century, fertility in Western and Eastern Europe also declined to
below replacement levels. By the mid-1920s, more than half of the European population lived
in countries with sub-replacement fertility (Frejka and Ross 2001, 214f.), and by the mid-
1930s only a minority of European countries had fertility rates above replacement (van Bavel
2010, 2). The fertility increase to and beyond replacement level that followed in the late 1940s
and during the “baby boom” of the 1950s and 1960s marks a temporary phase in the
otherwise low-fertility history of 20th
century Europe.
Despite the long history of low-fertility patterns in Europe, comparisons and subsequent
conclusions about sub-replacement fertility have usually been drawn with the high-fertility
decades of the mid-20th
century as a reference point. Just like in the 1920s and 1930s, the
currently low fertility in Europe has generated several doomsday scenarios that predict the
demise of the continent. Europe has been pictured as graying and even as vanishing
demographically. Some authors have seen it as sliding into a global disadvantage due to its
lack of young people and have portrayed it as falling behind in technological advancement,
and as losing out in productivity, economic performance, and political power. Many authors
fear that low fertility and the shortage of young people will have adverse effects on Europe‟s
labor markets and on European social-security and welfare-state systems. Immigration,
proposed by some as a remedy against the consequences of low fertility, is rejected by others
who warn that further immigration will jeopardize Europe‟s social and cultural cohesion, its
ethnic homogeneity, and the survival of “Europeanness”. (For a summary of these arguments,
see Neyer 2011; for the perception of low fertility in the 1920s and 1930s, see van Bavel
2010.)
Such concerns about the consequences of low fertility have spurred much public and political
interest in policies that could raise fertility levels. The increase in the TFR during the first
decade of the 21st century has not silenced the voices that call for such policies. Quite on the
contrary, the number of countries which state that they endorse policies to elevate fertility has
continued to rise since the turn of the century. In 2001 about a third of the European countries
reported that they had implemented policies to raise fertility. By 2009, half of the countries
6
claimed to have such policies in place (United Nations 2002; 2010). The European Union has
also come to view low fertility as a challenge. It has started a number of initiatives to monitor
the demographic trends of Europe and to guide countries in taking policy measures which are
assumed to increase fertility and to promote “demographic renewal” (Policies 2006).
To an observer, the national and supra-national initiatives to tackle low fertility levels raise
the question whether policies do in fact influence fertility developments and bring about or at
least contribute to higher fertility. Many studies which compare the fertility-related policies
and the TFR of selected countries attribute differences in fertility levels to differences in
policies supporting families (Sleebos 2003; Bonoli 2008; Castles 2003; Gauthier 2007).
Unfortunately, the results stated depend on the methods used (Hoem 2008), on the selection
of countries, and on the time frame in which the TFR and the policies are compared. Some
European countries with comparatively high levels of fertility have very meager policies (e.g.,
Ireland or the UK); other countries with extensive family support programs have experienced
continued or temporary low fertility levels (e.g., the German-speaking countries; Sweden in
the first half of the 1990s). This challenges the unconditional assumption that fertility-related
policies boost fertility levels.1 Even the recent increase in the TFR in many low-fertility
countries in Europe cannot unanimously be attributed to fertility-related policy initiatives
enacted to increase fertility. According to Goldstein et al. (2009), in some countries the rise in
the TFR was probably related to the implementation of such policies, in others there is no
discernible link between family policy initiatives and fertility developments, and in yet
another group of countries the fertility turn-around happened despite the absence of any major
fertility-related policy intervention. In general, researchers conclude that the effects of
policies on general fertility levels are weak, inconclusive, or contradictory (Neyer 2003;
Sleebos 2003; Gauthier 2007; Thévenon and Gauthier 2011; Spiess 2012; see also the country
chapters in Frejka et al. 2008).
This has led some researchers to take a broader perspective on policies. They propose that one
should pursue an institutional approach (McNicoll 1994) and consider the configurations and
interactions of policies, explore the impact of policy packages, and take the welfare-state
system into account (McNicoll 2001; Neyer 2003; 2005; Neyer and Andersson 2008;
McDonald in this book). Others argue that such a broadening of the angle complicates the
1 The same applies to policies which aim at lowering fertility (Bledsoe et al. 1998).
7
assessment of policy effects on fertility because it is hardly possible to observe and measure
the impact of policy conglomerations or of the welfare state on human lives (Mayer and
Schoepflin 1989; Rindfuss and Brauner-Otto 2008). I maintain in this chapter that the broader
policy- or welfare-state approach on the one hand and the single-policy approach on the other
hand complement each other. Concentrating on the welfare state, I outline the potential of an
integrative approach for fertility research and present empirical examples to demonstrate its
analytical range. The main conclusion of this exercise is that both approaches are necessary in
order to explain fertility developments in Europe from a policy perspective. Together, they
provide a more integrative framework which allows us to link policies and fertility both
theoretically and empirically.
2 Welfare state and fertility
Several researchers have pointed out the importance of the state for fertility developments
(McNicoll 1994; 2001; Mayer and Schoepflin 1989; Mayer 2009; McDonald 2006). They
stress that the capacity of the state to shape fertility derives from its legal, administrative, and
bureaucratic power to regulate vital relationships within society (McNicoll 1994) and to
structure the individual‟s life course (Mayer 2009). European countries are unique in that the
welfare state has become an essential institution – some maintain even the essential institution
– which shapes human behavior and social and economic relationships. Although many
proclaim that the “golden age of the welfare state” (i.e., from the 1950s to the mid-1970s) has
passed and that economic and demographic challenges will lead to the dismantling of the
welfare state, current research does not corroborate this claim (Pierson 1996, Pierson 2001,
Boeri et al. 2001). The welfare-state reforms in European countries during the most recent
three decades have rather been what Pierson (2001) calls recalibrations of the welfare state.
Many of the adjustments have involved the modification of existing and the introduction of
new welfare policies (Pierson 2001, 16). They signal a shift in the focus of the welfare state
towards greater responsiveness to “new social risks” (Esping-Andersen 1999; Bonoli 2005;
Palier 2010). These “new social risks” are largely related to the transformation of gender
relationships and to the decline of the “male-breadwinner family” (Esping-Andersen 1999;
2002; Bonoli 2005; Taylor-Gooby 2004). They involve primarily woman-centered life-course
risks which have been covered insufficiently by the “old” welfare state with its focus on the
8
income retention of the male breadwinner, viz, the reconciliation of work and family life, care
needs, and lone parenthood (Bonoli 2005, 431). These “new social risks” are closely related to
childbearing. The same consideration applies to other “new social risks” to which welfare
states have become more responsive, namely, low education, low income, long-term
unemployment, and insufficient social-security coverage (Bonoli 2005; Esping-Andersen
1999). This implies that the welfare state has become potentially more important for
childbearing decisions and fertility developments. It makes the question of how and to what
extent we can assess the impact of the welfare state on fertility even more pressing.
2.1. Quantifying the welfare state
Researchers have pursued several strategies to measure the importance of the welfare state for
human life. One approach is to classify welfare states according to how extensive or generous
they are. Most often generosity or extensiveness are measured in monetary or other
quantifiable terms. Examples are the share of the general domestic product attributed to social
policies, expenditure on family-relevant social policies (e.g., health), the length of maternity
leave and of parental leave after childbirth, the wage compensation granted to mothers (and
fathers) during such leaves, the benefits granted to single mothers or to each child in a family,
public subsidies for childcare, housing, and education, and so forth. The attraction for
demographers of these and similar indicators is that they are often available for a large
number of countries and that many of these indicators have been standardized for comparative
purposes. Examples of such databases are: the OECD Social Expenditure Database, the
OECD Family Database, the European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics
(ESSPROS), the Comparative Family Policy Database, and the GGP Contextual Database.
During the last two decades, more fine-grained indicators have become available, as have
previously missing ones that are associated with the welfare coverage of “new social risks”, of
gender, and of family issues. This means that demographers have an increasing number of and
more refined indicators at hand. Such indicators are well suited to rank welfare states or to
determine clusters of welfare states along demography-relevant aspects (see, for example,
Thévenon 2008). A weakness of such indicators is that many of them represent only the
quantitative dimensions of a welfare state and its policies: Merely quantifying welfare-state
measures have proved to be of limited potential in capturing essential characteristics of the
welfare state and in explaining current or long-term cross-national differences in fertility
9
outcomes. Even if measures of specific policies are selected, relying on the purely quantitative
aspects of such policies may not be sufficient to show possible linkages between policies and
fertility. The reason for this is that extensiveness or generosity does not necessarily indicate
how supportive a policy or a welfare state is. For example, social expenditure may be high
because of high unemployment, which in turn leads to greater expenditure on unemployment
benefits, even if these are low. Likewise, a long parental leave appears quantitatively as
generous, while in fact long leaves are known to inhibit mothers‟ return to the labor market
and women‟s employment careers (Rønsen and Sundström 2002). A merely quantitative
approach does not uncover such features, because it neither discloses the principles on which
a welfare state is based nor its aims. Both of these latter dimensions are essential, however, in
that they shape the content and the direction of a welfare state and its social policies (for an
example of an approach which recognizes these dimensions, see Kalwij 2010). They are
therefore crucial elements needed to capture the essence of the welfare state and to assess its
potential impact on fertility.
2.2 The welfare state from the perspective of its principles and aims
Several researchers have developed welfare-state concepts that recognize explicitly the
principles and the aims of a welfare state (Wilensky 1975; Flora and Heidenheimer 1982;
Esping-Andersen 1990). Such notions have become dominant in welfare-state research. This
approach differs significantly from the purely quantifying approach. The latter regards a
welfare state primarily as the “sum of its policies” (measured, as we mentioned above, in
terms of extensiveness or generosity). An approach which considers the principles and aims
of a welfare state focuses on the structuring functions of the welfare state and on the
ideological premises on which its social policies are based (Wilensky 1975). It regards the
welfare state as an institution which provides social order for human behavior through its
social policies. As an institution, it creates a “stable equilibrium” (McNicoll 2009, 790) for
individual action and for society, and it gives guidance and meaning to behavior.
10
2.2.1 Welfare regimes: The principles of equality and of security
The principles and aims acknowledged as essential for welfare states are commonly related to
equality and to security. Equality is usually conceived as equality across class lines. Some
distinguish between equality of opportunities and equality of result (Flora and Heidenheimer
1982). Security relates primarily to protection against economic and demographic risks
(unemployment, old age) through social-security systems (Flora and Heidenheimer 1982).
Based on the way in which these principles and aims are transposed into welfare-state
policies, distinct welfare regimes can be identified. In his seminal and widely applied
typology of welfare regimes, Esping-Andersen (1990) classifies Western welfare states
according to three dimensions which govern core social policies, related to unemployment,
health/invalidity, and old-age pensions:
(1) “De-commodification”, which is “the degree to which individuals, or families, can uphold
a socially acceptable standard of living independently of market participation” (Esping-
Andersen 1990, 37). In essence, this refers to the social security granted to a person in case of
unemployment, sickness, old age, or any other life-course issue which makes her/him unable
to participate in the labor market (e.g., childbearing, childrearing).
(2) “Social citizenship”, which is whether access to welfare-state benefits are granted on the
basis of individual rights (social citizenship), on the basis of needs (Esping-Andersen 1990,
21-23), or on the basis of specific family constellations. Benefits based on needs often rest on
the principle of subsidiarity, in that the family is regarded as the primary source of welfare
and the state only as a back-up. Benefits are only granted if individual and family resources
are exhausted or if the family is unable to provide welfare. Entitlements based on specific
family forms (marriage) acknowledge the principle of mutual support in family relationships
and grant access to social security to the partner/children of the main provider. In both cases,
an individual‟s welfare is made dependent on family relationships and/or family resources
(Fraser and Gordon 1994).
(3) “Stratification”, which is whether welfare-state policies reinforce, sustain, or reduce social
cleavages and status differences between various social and economic groups. This includes
whether access to and levels of benefits are granted on equal terms to everyone or whether
they vary by occupational status (blue-collar/white-collar/public workers) or by family status
(married/non-married).
11
These dimensions generate three specific types of Western welfare regimes: (1) the
universalistic or social-democratic welfare regime of the Nordic countries, characterized by a
high degree of de-commodification, social-citizenship based rights to welfare benefits, and
policies which are directed towards social equality; (2) the conservative-corporatist welfare
regime of continental Western Europe, with stratifying and subsidiary welfare systems based
on employment- and occupation-related social insurance schemes; and (3) the liberal welfare
regime of the English-speaking countries with its reliance on the market and on private
provision of social security and with minimal (means-tested) public support.
There have been several suggestions to modify Esping-Andersen‟s typology (see, Arts and
Gelissen 2002 for an overview). Most of them are based on claims that specific countries
deviate from the ideal types of welfare regimes. Following Ferrera (1996), many researchers,
including demographers, acknowledge Southern European countries as a separate welfare
regime (the “Latin rim” or “Mediterranean” model), because of the highly fragmented system
of social protection, the close reliance on the family as provider of welfare, the distinct
clientalism in these countries, and the pronounced labor-market insider-outsider divide.2 Post-
communist countries in Eastern and Central European have been added as an additional,
although diverse and volatile, welfare regime, which combines Bismarckian (conservative)
and liberal (market-based) welfare aspects (Cerami and Vanhuysse 2009). All of these
modifications of the three worlds of welfare maintain the primary focus on the core social-
security systems in Western Europe (unemployment, health/invalidity, old-age pension) and
on their logics regarding social rights, protection against labor-market risks, and class
structures.
2.2.2 Welfare regimes, gender, and the family
Feminist and gender researchers have broadened this framework further by emphasizing the
notions of gender ingrained in welfare policies. They emphasize how views of gender shape
welfare-state policies and how welfare states in turn shape gender relationships in the family,
in the economic sphere, and in society. They thus include the family in a more subtle way in
their classification and analysis of welfare states. They de-compose “the family” and
2 The allocation of the Netherlands and of Switzerland to the conservative welfare regime has also been
contested; both are seen as hybrid cases (Arts and Gelissen 2002).
12
distinguish between partnership and parenthood as two different forms of relationships which
are shaped by welfare-state policies. They introduce care, that is, care giving and care
receiving, as essential dimensions of welfare policies (Knijn and Kremer 1997). They bring in
family policies as part of social policies. Finally, they modify the welfare-state principles by
turning the attention to risks, rights, and stratifications related to or resulting from gender
(being female or male), sexual orientation (heterosexual, same-sex, transsexual), partnership
forms (cohabitation, marriage, divorce, widowhood), or parenthood status (single mothers;
other forms of parental status). (For an overview over these aspects, see Neyer 2003).
Taken together these features expand the range and content of social policies substantially.
Just like the labor market or class structure, the family, gender, and sexual relationships are
regarded as targets of the welfare state. Linking gender, the labor market, the family, and the
welfare state, feminist and gender welfare-state researchers have highlighted three additional
fertility-relevant welfare-state principles:
(1) “Commodification”, which is the way in which welfare states support the
labor-force participation of women and mothers, and maintain or alter the “male-
breadwinner” family (Orloff 1993; Lewis 1992; Gornick et al. 1997). In a broader sense,
commodification includes maintaining and supporting the employability of individuals,
especially of those who have difficulties entering and remaining in the labor market (e.g.,
mothers, youth, immigrants, the less educated, the long-term unemployed). It also extends to
the way in which policies promote or hamper gender equality in the labor market, that is, in
types of employment, at the workplace, in income, in career options and so forth, as an
essential aspect of commodification over the life-course.
(2) “Familialism”/“de-familialisation”, which depicts the way in which a
welfare state deals with “care”. ”Familialism” refers to the extent to which welfare states
regard the family and thus directly or indirectly women as the primary providers of care. It
describes the degree to which welfare states support familial care, encourage mothers‟ retreat
from the labor market after childbearing, and strengthen their caring functions (Leitner 2003).
This includes the preferential treatment of marriage (and of a married female carer) over other
family forms. “De-familialisation” refers to the aim of a welfare state to reduce family care
responsibilities and (female) dependencies by providing institutional care (Anttonen and
Sipilä 1996; Esping-Andersen 1999; Saraceno and Keck 2010; Saraceno 2011).
13
(3) “De-gendering of employment and care”, which is the extent to which
welfare states seek to alter gender relationships by supporting the employment of mothers and
by promoting the engagement of fathers in childcare and family work (Sainsbury 1999; Korpi
2000). This refers primarily to policy aims to change the male-breadwinner/female-carer
family model towards the more gender-equal dual-earner/dual-carer family form (Sainsbury
1999).
If the dimensions of commodification, familialism, and de-gendering of employment and care
are added in the classification of welfare states, the welfare-regime pattern becomes more
diverse. The continental European welfare states do not constitute a common regime any
longer. With their high degree of de-familialisation, France and Belgium are closer to the
Nordic welfare states. Among the other continental welfare states, there exist different
patterns of support for women‟s employment, of familialism and de-familialisation: Southern
Europe is less de-familialising than other conservative Western European countries; Eastern
Europe, once a region in which states ideologically supported female employment and
encouraged childbearing through various degrees of familialism, has undergone a process of
re-familialisation and moved towards different, albeit frequently changing patterns of
familialism (Lewis 1992; Anttonnen and Sipilä 1996; Gornick et al. 1997; Sainsbury 1999;
Leitner 2003; Neyer 2005; Szelewa and Polakowski 2008; Szikra and Tomka 2009).
2.2.3 Family-policy change and regime continuity
The family-policy based pattern of welfare regimes has become more diverse during the past
decade. The reforms of the European welfare states in order to tackle new social risks – in
particular policy initiatives related to (female) labor-force participation, parental leave, and
childcare – have not been uniform across countries nor have they all gone in the same
direction. For example, Finland, Norway, and recently also Sweden introduced some “re-
familialisation” policies by giving parents a choice between using public childcare or taking
care of children at home for a longer period of time. These countries seem to partly move
away from their gender-equality principles, so that the Nordic welfare regime appears less
homogenous with respect to de-familialisation. Germany, by contrast, replaced its
conservative parental-leave system by regulations modeled after the Nordic countries. Judged
on the basis of its current parental leave system, it emerges as a de-familialising country,
14
deviating from the rest of the group of countries with conservative parental-leave patterns.
Austria took a position in-between by diversifying its parental leave regulations so that
parents can now choose among five different modes of leave. Some authors find that such
policy changes, which diverge from the general welfare orientation of a country, have made it
more difficult to allocate countries to specific welfare regimes and to locate stable patterns.
Some countries even tend to shift between different regimes, depending on which policy is
included in the analysis. (See, e.g., the classification of care regimes in Saraceno and Keck
2010 and of family policies in Thévenon 2011). This may also make it more difficult to assess
linkages between welfare-state configurations and fertility.
However, such fuzziness and instability arise primarily if the classification is based on only
one single policy at a time. Radical, paradigmatic changes in policy directions are rare (Hall
1993). Even if such changes do occur, they usually apply to only one policy or to a very
limited set of policy features. The change usually does not affect the direction of the welfare
state (although it can mark the beginning of a gradual transformation). If we consider the
main principles and orientations of welfare- and family policies as a whole, the regime
patterns have remained remarkably persistent over time (Castles and Obinger 2008). Despite
the changes mentioned above, Germany and Austria, for example, continue to be conservative
welfare states, and the Nordic countries still constitute a distinct, highly gender-equality
oriented welfare regime. Fundamental changes of the welfare state as such have happened
only in post-communist countries. They were not brought about by a replacement of one set
of welfare policies through another, but by the breakdown of the political and economic
system, the concurrent disruption of the organizational and administrative basis of much of
the (non-family) welfare production, and the rise of capitalism. These developments
“dislodged” previous welfare policies and welfare functioning. However, some basic
principles, such as familialism, have continued to prevail and have governed post-communist
welfare adjustments in a way that some authors see more path-dependency and path-
continuation than path-departure and path-cessation, despite the transformation of the welfare
systems (Cerami and Vanhuysee 2009).3
3 Authors who stress path-dependency see the post-communist welfare institutions as partly reaching back to pre-
communist times (Cerami and Vanhuysse 2009).
15
2.2.4 Welfare regimes and fertility research
For several reasons, the lines of welfare-state research described above provide a useful
approach for policy-oriented fertility research. First, this approach links welfare-state policies
more closely to human behavior than purely expenditure-based approaches do. By focusing
on the notions of gender, equality, security, class, social rights, and family incorporated in
welfare-state policies, this research emphasizes that welfare states are not neutral towards all
groups of society and towards all forms of social behavior. Welfare states support specific
types of behavior and discriminate against others. They give privilege to specific forms of
life-course organizations by making work and family behavior which is compatible with
welfare-state policies more meaningful, “rational” or advantageous than other forms of
behavior. Welfare states thus create a realm of “agency inequality” (Korpi 2000) along
gender, class, age and other social lines.
Second, focusing on the principles and aims governing welfare policies offers a common basis
to characterize the main orientation of a welfare state, to reduce the heterogeneity of its social
policies to essential features, and to cluster welfare states into broader groups of welfare
regimes. This facilitates comparative research on the linkage between social policies and
fertility. It is usually impossible to include all social policies in comparative research. Even if
we only consider a selection of policies, the breadth of variation in policy manifestations
across countries may result in findings that cannot be interpreted in a meaningful way.
Welfare-state regimes represent the basic characteristics of the social-policy environment in
which women and men make their fertility decisions. They can thus serve as an indicator of
this environment in fertility analyses.
Third, by considering the welfare-state regime, we avoid over- or underestimating the effects
of single policies. Policies may have different effects depending on whether they are in line
with or go against other welfare-state policies and thus line up with or counteract the general
orientation of a welfare state (Neyer and Andersson 2008). Singling out one policy as an
explanatory factor for fertility change or for the persistence of fertility patterns may lead to
wrong conclusions as to the magnitude or even the direction of a policy effect (Neyer and
Andersson 2008). Situating the policy within its broader welfare-state context, that is, in
relation to the main principles and aims of the welfare state, mitigates this problem.
16
Fourth, the gender and feminist welfare-state approach connects well with two major
demographic theories of fertility development and fertility differentials in advanced societies,
namely McDonald‟s theory of gender equity and Goldscheider‟s theory of a two-step gender
revolution. Both theories link low fertility in highly-advanced capitalist countries to the
discrepancy between high female labor-force participation and low gender equity in family
care work, that is, to the increasing “commodification” of women on the one hand and the
persistence of a high degree of familialism and a low degree of de-gendering of care on the
other hand (McDonald 2000; Goldscheider 2000). Both theories hold that the decline from
high to low fertility levels in Western countries has been associated with an increase in
women‟s presence in the labor market and in other public institutions and with a concomitant
persistence of women‟s sole responsibility for family work and care, while a subsequent
increase from low to higher fertility levels necessitates a stronger involvement of men in
family work and care. Welfare states play a mediating role in shaping these movements via
their support or non-support of gender equality in employment and care (Neyer 2006). More
generally speaking, the theories predict higher fertility if the orientation of a welfare state
towards women and men complies with prevailing societal gender norms and the behavior of
women and men, and the theories expect fertility to decline and remain low if there is a
divergence between the gender logic of a welfare state on the one hand and the societal
development regarding gender norms and gender behavior on the other hand. The same may
apply to the childbearing developments among specific groups in society, since some social
groups hold attitudes and are in a position to lead a life course which complies with the
existing social policies while other social groups are not (see also Bourdieu 1996).
So far, the theoretical assumptions about the relationship between welfare-state logics and
fertility developments have primarily focused on women; this is why the gender and feminist
approach has proved to be especially useful for fertility research. However, if we want to link
men‟s fertility behavior and male fertility developments to welfare-state configurations, the
gender and feminist notions may apply only partially. For men, fertility decisions still seem to
depend largely on employment and on the economic security to maintain of a family rather
than on care options or on the possibility to combine employment and care (Neyer et al.
2011). As a consequence, typologies of welfare states centered on employment and social-
security, such as those by Esping-Andersen and his successors, may be more suitable to assess
the linkage between welfare states and male fertility. Similar considerations may apply if, for
17
example, we look at connections between welfare-state systems and immigrants‟ fertility
behavior or at the interrelationship between economic developments, welfare-state
configurations and fertility behavior. Briefly, to assess the relationship between welfare-state
systems and fertility, it is necessary to consider which welfare-state dimensions are relevant
for the persons or groups and for the event studied.
Fifth and partly resulting from the arguments set out above, because of the enduring nature of
welfare-state principles, the regime concept offers a useful policy framework for comparative
analysis of fertility developments over time. The difficulties one encounters in a cross-
sectional comparative analysis intended to include all fertility-relevant social policies are
aggravated if one attempts to incorporate the development of these policies across many
countries and over time. As we have mentioned, welfare-state typologies offer a way to
reduce the range and variety of social policies to a few shared characteristics and to explicitly
acknowledge the social-policy system either in the analysis or in the interpretation. A welfare-
state approach is particularly appropriate if policy explanations are sought for trends in
aggregate (cohort or period) fertility measures.4 These can rarely be related to the
introduction, existence or elimination of a single policy, such as parental leave, family
benefits, or childcare institutions. Instead, aggregate fertility measures tend to reflect the
broader circumstances under which childbearing decisions are made, that is their context.
Regime concepts offer to provide a structure to this context by representing essential welfare-
state features which guide behavior over the life course.
To summarize, the welfare-regime approach reaches beyond purely measurable aspects of
social policies and aims to capture the essence of structuring elements of welfare systems.
This has its advantages, as outlined above, but it also has some disadvantages for fertility
research. Some may regard it as a drawback that some welfare-state classifications are based
on researchers‟ judgments about policy directions. This introduces a qualitative element into
the analysis. A challenge is also posed by welfare states which deviate from the ideal-type
welfare regimes, that is, welfare states whose policies follow rather heterogeneous principles,
such as Switzerland or the former Eastern-Bloc countries. Their allocation to a specific
4 Aggregate fertility measures have received much criticism because they do not reflect fertility-relevant
behavioral aspects (e.g., Hoem 2008; Hoem and Mureşan 2011). Some authors therefore consider them
inappropriate for the assessment of the relationship between policies and fertility. Nevertheless, they are still the
dominant indicators of fertility development and are commonly used as reference categories in policy
discussions.
18
welfare regime or – in the case of the former communist countries – their clustering into one
or two welfare regimes must be considered carefully. Some authors argue furthermore that
changes in the labor market, such as the increase in new types of work which are less well
covered by welfare regulations, have decreased the power of the welfare state to shape
individual lives, even though welfare-state policies to cover “new social risks” have been
expanded (Scharpf and Schmidt 2000). Despite these issues, the concept of welfare regimes
constitutes a valuable contribution to an institutional approach in fertility research by linking
individual behavior with the structured macro-level environment in which a person lives.
2.3 Welfare states and institutional complementarities
The institutional approach of welfare-state research stresses that welfare states do not only
affect employment and family behavior, but that they also structure the labor market and other
institutions. Demographers have mostly turned their attention to the relationship between
welfare-state policies and family behavior. Less attention has been paid to the fact that
different welfare regimes are associated with differently organized labor markets, as is
indicated by Esping-Andersen‟s concept of welfare regimes based on class- and labor-
relations. The organization and structure of the labor market per se can affect family behavior,
including fertility developments (Rindfuss and Brauner-Otto 2008). For example, women
working in a labor market with a high share of women and with welfare-state policies which
support women‟s employment probably encounter different childbearing conditions than
women working in a labor market with a low share of female employees and with welfare-
state policies which promote exit from the labor-market when a woman enters motherhood.
Beyond the mere employment structure of the labor market, scholars highlight the fact that
different welfare regimes offer different schemes and levels of protection to wage earners
(Esping-Andersen 1990; Hall and Soskice 2001). In conservative welfare states, the various
groups of employees (such as public employees, blue-collar workers, white-collar workers,
workers in new types of employment such as call centers, the new self-employed, and so
forth) are usually covered by distinctly different labor-protection schemes. In social-
democratic welfare regimes, the protection is more universal; in liberal welfare states labor
protection is largely absent. This creates labor markets of different characters, with different
conditions of entry and exit, of internal mobility, of inclusion and exclusion, and of economic
19
and social security. In a manner similar to varieties of welfare regimes, researchers therefore
speak of “varieties of capitalism” (Hall and Soskice 2001).
The approach based on varieties of capitalism distinguishes between the “coordinated market
economies” of Western continental and social-democratic welfare states on the one hand and
the “liberal market economies” of the liberal welfare states on the other hand (Hall and
Soskice 2001).5 In contrast to the situation in liberal market economies, labor-market entry is
more institutionalized in coordinated market economies. In the latter, the labor markets show
a high degree of occupational and gender segregation; they offer less opportunity for upward
mobility for women, and the comparatively strong social protection of workers leads to less
movement into and out of the labor market (Mandel and Semyonov 2006).
Scholars using varieties of capitalism stress that the institutional complementarities are not
limited to linkages between welfare-state regimes and labor-market regimes; they also extend
to other societal institutions, such as to educational systems. Estévez-Abe et al. (2001) show
that different market economies have different systems of skill formation. In coordinated
market economies with their high protection of workers against dismissal, educational
systems provide high-level and often highly standardized industry-, firm-, or occupation-
specific skills through vocational schools and apprenticeships. In liberal market economies
with their low protection and high mobility of workers, the educational systems provide
general, transportable skills (Estévez-Abe et al. 2001, Estévez-Abe 2005; 2009; Hall and
Soskice 2001; Soskice 2005).
The varieties-of-capitalism approach has been criticized for lumping together the
universalistic welfare states of the Nordic countries and the corporatist-conservative welfare
states of continental Europe (McCall and Orloff 2005, Mandel and Shalev 2009; Rubery
2009; Thelen 2012). Recent modifications of the coordinated market economies suggest that
we should distinguish between “sector-coordinated” market economies with industry-based
systems of protection (corresponding largely to the corporatist-conservative welfare states)
and “national-coordinated” market economies with greater egalitarian aims (“egalitarian
5 There is a substantial difference between the welfare-state approach and the approach based on “varieties of
capitalism”. The former stresses the role of the state, the latter stresses the role of firms and employers in the
development of social policies and in structuring economic relationships. My application of the varieties-of-
capitalism approach selects only a specific aspect of this research line, a line which to me seems useful for
fertility research.
20
capitalism”, comprising the Scandinavian welfare states) (Thelen 2012)6. These distinctions
offer a more suitable framework to capture varieties in female labor-force participation,
gender (in)equality in employment, transitions into/out of the labor market, and differences in
systems of skill acquisitions.
With these extensions, the varieties-of-capitalism approach offers intriguing new aspects for
demographic research. It stresses the interdependency and the complementarity between
different institutions, in particular between the labor market, the educational system, and
welfare-state policies. If different configurations of the welfare state are associated with
different systems of skill acquisition, with different circumstances in the labor market, and
with different constraints regarding mobility in and out of employment and across
occupations, we cannot only focus on family policies as the essential institutional force
determining childbearing behavior. We also need to consider the constraints imposed by these
other complementary institutions. Combining welfare-regime approaches with a varieties-of-
capitalism approach leads to a more comprehensive concept of institutional setting, namely
one which puts the emphasis on the linkages between the various fertility-relevant institutions.
If we use a conceptual framework for fertility research which considers institutional
complementarities rather than focusing on one institution only, we are better able to assess to
what extent changes in one institution (e.g., the labor market or the gender system) affect the
potential impact of other institutions (e.g., the welfare state, family policies) on fertility. Such
a dynamic model of institutional complementarities expands the institutional framework for
explaining differentials in childbearing behavior and fertility outcome which cannot be
explained sufficiently well otherwise.
2.3.1 Welfare state, institutional complementarities, and fertility: An example
To summarize the arguments and to illustrate the usefulness of such notions for fertility
research, let us consider findings of studies on ultimate childlessness by educational field and
educational level among Swedish and Austrian women born in 1955 to 1959. (For details, see
6 The terms “sector-coordinated” and “national-coordinated” economies refer to the way in which labor
negotiations between employers‟ associations and unions (e.g., collective bargaining) are carried out. The sector-
coordinated economies lead to more occupation-/sector-specific welfare and labor-market systems, national-
coordinated economies to more egalitarian systems (Thelen 2012).
21
Hoem et al. 2006; Neyer and Hoem 2008). In Sweden as well as in Austria, the overall level
of childless among women of this cohort is the same (15,7%). In both countries, women
educated for teaching or health professions remain childless less often than women in most
other educational fields, at each level of education (Figure 2 and Figure 3). However, Sweden
and Austria differ markedly with regard to childlessness by educational level. Austrian
women with an upper-secondary or tertiary education have much higher childlessness than
women with a lower education, while there exist no such differences by educational level
among Swedish women7 (Figure 3).
Figure 2: Percent childless by educational field and educational level. Austrian women born
1955-1959
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1 2 3 4 5 6
pe
r c
en
t c
hild
les
s
educational level
General
Teaching, Health, Social Work
Art, Humanities, Religion
Econ., Busin., Adm., Law, Social Sc.
Industry, Craft, Engin., Nat. Sc.
Agriculture
Personal Services
primary apprenticeship vocationalmiddle
highschoolgeneral &vocational
vocationalcollege
university
textile worker
on
food proc.
book seller
sales
banking,
r
midwife
med-tech.ass.
pre-school teachernurse
hairdresser
beautician
high schooltourism
tourism
primary-school teacher
vocational-school teacher
med.-therap.
.
social worker
engineer
agricult.
pharmacist
physician.
high school teacher
social scient.
journalist
veterin.
artist, theolog., humanist
law
nat.scient.econ.
hotel/restaurant
social worker technician
agricult.
technician architect
psychol.
dental ass
agricult.agricult.
Source: Neyer and Hoem 2008
7 There is an exception for the most highly qualified women in Sweden, that is, women with a PhD. The Austrian
data do not distinguish between the different levels of university-based tertiary education, so that no comparison
is possible for this most highly educated group of women.
22
Figure 3: Percent childless by educational field and educational level. Swedish women born
1955-59
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
2 3 4 5 6 7
Pe
r c
en
t c
hild
les
s
e
General ed
Personal service etc.
Esthetic, humanist, religious
Adm., econ., social sci.
Industry,crafts,engin.,nat. sci.
Teaching and health
waitress
post office official
beautician
midwife
primary-school teacher
policewoman
nurse
deaconess
humanist
theologian
lawyer
social scientist
artist
librarian
natural scientist
high-school teacher
MDsocial worker
special education teacherdentist
childcare worker
dental nurse
medical secretary
primary school
long secondary school
PhD (Med)
PhD (SH)
PhD (NT)
pre-school teacher
pharmacist
engineer
music/arts teacher
after-school
primary two year secondary three year secondary vocational & lower tertiary university PhD
Source: Hoem, Neyer and Andersson 2006
23
Figure 4: Childlessness by educational level at age 40+. Women born in 1955 to 1959:
Austria and Sweden
Source: Neyer and Hoem 2008
Notes:
Sweden primary up to age16
lower secondary&apprenticeship 2-year secondary
upper secondary 3-year secondary
lower tertiary 2-3 years
tertiary 4 year & PhD
Austria primary up to age 10 or 14
lower secondary&apprenticeship apprenticeships& voc. middle
upper secondary vocational & general highschool
lower tertiary teachers' & voc. Colleges
tertiary university through PhD
The differences and similarities in levels of childlessness between and among Austrian and
Swedish women cannot be explained by a single factor only, such as by differences in family
policies. We need a broader and more comprehensive framework, because ultimate
childlessness is measured at the end of a woman‟s reproductive life (at age 41+). We thus
observe the final outcome of a series of decisions and behaviors that stretch over more than 25
24
years. We argue that the patterns are produced by the distinct institutional settings of the two
countries during the period in question, namely the structure and the flexibility of the
educational system, the differences in labor-market and employment conditions for different
educational groups, the gendered patterns in education and in the labor market, the welfare-
state orientation and the gender and family policies, as well as the way in which education,
labor market, and family and gender policies are intertwined. To support the argument, we
consider some of the institutional commonalities and differences, concentrating on the aspects
discussed above. (For more detailed descriptions, see Hoem et al. 2006; Neyer and Hoem
2008).8 Austria and Sweden share a sufficient number of features to make a comparison of the
selected cohort of women interesting. Both countries revised their educational systems in the
early 1970s to facilitate access to higher education for all social groups. Both introduced
parental-leave schemes and individual taxation in the first half of the 1970s to increase female
labor-force participation. Both countries are classified as “coordinated market economies”
with a high degree of institutionalization of labor- and social-policy issues; both countries
have educational systems with a large share of vocational training; and both countries are
“strong” welfare states with a long-established system of family policies (Estévez-Abe et al.
2001; Culpepper 2007; Pontussen 2000; Soskice 2005). However, Austria and Sweden have
taken markedly different paths regarding these institutions. Since the 1960s, Swedish policies
for the labor market, social relations, education, the family have been directed towards
reducing inequality and towards promoting social and gender equality. The educational
system is set up to promote higher educational attainment, to allow for flexible moves
between educational fields, and to encourage recurrent and life-long education and training.
Comprehensive primary education (up to age 16) avoids early separation of pupils into
different educational tracks. Vocational training is offered at the (upper-)secondary and at the
tertiary level. Contrary to many other coordinated market economies with vocational training
systems, Sweden offers a high share of its vocational training at the tertiary level (29.9%;
Culpepper 2007, 621), and it is therefore ranked as a country with a more general educational-
skill profile and high labor market mobility (Culpepper 2007, 620f.; Estévez-Abe et al. 2001;
Benner and Vad 2000).
8 The description focuses on the period from 1970 to 2000; this covers roughly the main reproductive years of
women of the cohort 1955-59.
25
By contrast, the Austrian school system is highly segregated and changes between educational
tracks are difficult. Separating pupils into different educational tracks starts as early as after
four years of schooling (at age 10) and continues afterwards through diversification of the
school system into different types of schools or different lines of education with partially
different curricula. Vocational training is offered mostly at the secondary level, either in
vocational schools or as apprenticeships. (Only 3.9% are provided at the tertiary level;
Culpepper 2007, 621). Unlike in Sweden, the Austrian system of apprenticeships is
segregated from the general school system. It offers much less general education and much
less portable skills than the Swedish vocational system does (Culpepper 2007). There are few
opportunities to interrupt and subsequently re-enter the educational system; below university
level it is almost impossible. Access to post-secondary and tertiary education is restricted to
those who have passed a final comprehensive high-school (upper-secondary school) exam.
This leads to a class divide between those who have passed this exam and those who have not.
Adult education and training is provided through specific institutions and is often costly.
Contrary to Sweden, the Austrian system is not organized to support gender and social
equality in education. Austria has largely adhered to gender-specific lines and programs (at
least at the time when our cohorts went to school); it has not succeeded in diminishing social
and class differences in educational participation and educational attainment to the extent that
Sweden has.
The different educational strategies of Sweden and Austria are associated with very different
patterns of educational attainment among the women of the cohorts 1955-59. Only 13% of
these Austrian women have attained tertiary education, compared to 33% of the Swedish
women. The vast majority (80%) of the Austrian women have only completed compulsory
school, vocational “middle” school, or an apprenticeship as their highest educational
attainment. This compares with 53% of the Swedish women who have equivalent degrees.
Austrian women with a high-school (upper-secondary school) or higher degree constitute a
clear minority (20%), while almost half of the Swedish women hold such a degree. One can
expect that these differences in educational distribution have repercussions on the labor
market structure, on women‟s employment, and on their childbearing behavior.
The Swedish approach to the labor-market has focused on “commodification”, labor-market
mobility and gender equality (Benner and Vad 2000). Since the 1960s it has been directed
towards increasing female labor-force participation, towards integrating every adult person
26
into the labor market, and towards reducing gender and social inequality in pay and other
work-related aspects. Welfare-state and family policies, both based on social-citizenship
rights, have been geared towards this goal, as well. Since the middle of the 1970s, family
policies aim to support the dual-earner/dual-carer family (Sainbury 1999), in which both
women and men pursue employment and share childrearing. Parental-leave regulations have
been gender neutral since then, and parental-leave benefits replace a high share of a woman‟s
or man‟s previous income. Since 1995, Sweden also has reserved one month of parental leave
for each parent (the “daddy month”).9 Public childcare has been extended to grant every child
access to high-quality and affordable childcare. As a consequence of these policy strategies,
female labor-force participation rates ranged from 60% to 83% during 1970 to 2000, which is
far above the corresponding rates in Austria (45% to 62%).
As a conservative welfare state with a sector-/branch-coordinated welfare- and labor-policy
system, Austria has put much less emphasis on integrating women into the labor market and
on promoting equality in employment and care. For a long time and through most of the
reproductive years of our cohort, the social-security system backed the male-breadwinner
family model by granting free coverage to married (later also to non-marital registered) non-
employed partners. Labor-market policies and work agreements distinguished between
women and men. Direct discriminatory treatment was only gradually abolished, but indirect
gender-unequal regulations have continued to exist (e.g., the seniority principle in the public
sector, which has been the main employer of highly educated women). Moreover, the
protection of a person‟s occupational and educational status in case of unemployment
hampers transitions between occupations with different qualification requirements. Welfare
and family policies have been directed towards facilitating mothers‟ work interruption after
childbirth. Until 1990, parental leave, inflexible and lowly paid, was only available for
mothers; the introduction of a (subsidiary) father‟s leave in 1990 was accompanied by a
doubling of the parental-leave period to two years, which has lengthened the labor-market
absence of mothers. Childcare for children below age three has hardly been available, and
although the overall coverage for children at three to six years has been relatively high, there
has been great regional variation regarding childcare coverage and full-time offers. In general,
while Sweden has aimed at increasing female education and labor-force participation and at
9 This was extended to two months in 2002, but (a) most of the women of our cohort (1955 to 1959) had finished
their childbearing by then, and (b) our data did not include the year 2002.
27
easing mothers‟ care work, Austria has maintained much of its class-oriented, gender-
differentiating work/family policies, despite the fact that education has been increasing among
women.
If we interpret the results of the study of Swedish and Austrian women‟s ultimate
childlessness in light of the differences in the educational system, the labor market, the family
policies, and the gender orientation of the welfare state, it is difficult to single out one factor
which could explain the striking difference in the levels of childlessness between women with
less education and women with higher education in the two countries. The clear class divide
in Austria indicates a discrepancy between the work aspirations of highly educated women on
the one hand and the obstacles of combining work and motherhood on the other hand; the
latter is brought about by the general conservative orientation of the welfare state, and the
resulting conditions of education, of family-policy support, and of labor-market circumstances
for women.
3 Conclusion
In this paper, I have outlined some of the central concepts of the welfare state and have
highlighted their usefulness for fertility research. The main conclusion is that studies on the
impact of family policies on fertility should consider the welfare-state context in which they
are embedded. Such an approach will lead to a more nuanced assessment of policy influences
and provide a more rooted understanding of estimation results. In addition, it allows scholars
to judge the potential fertility effects that policies might have if the social or economic
environment changes or if the policies are transferred to other welfare regimes. The broader
range of interpretations that the welfare-state approach offers is particularly appropriate in
evaluations of the current changes of family policies in contemporary Europe and their
influence on fertility.
During the past two decades family policies have become a highly dynamic policy area as
many European welfare states have amended their family policies to tackle “new social risks”
and to meet EU targets of raising women‟s labor-force participation, increasing childcare
availability, facilitating work-life balance, and achieving greater gender balance in work and
care. Governments also seek “best practices” in family policies, that is, options that have had
the desired effect in other countries, including the effect of raising fertility. These features
28
have greatly increased research opportunities for demographers. The changes in parental-
leave and other fertility-related policies and in childcare provisions in many countries allow
us to study (a) the fertility effects of similar policies in similar welfare states, (b) the effects of
different policies in similar welfare states, (c) the effects of similar policies in different
welfare states, and (d) the effects of different policies in different welfare states. This can be
extended to explorations of the interplay between welfare regimes and economic and social
developments as well as family policies, and of their influence on fertility. Such “most-
similar” and “most different” research designs can produce more robust results as to the
impact of policies on fertility across welfare regimes and across different economic and social
environments. They allow us to better assess the influence that welfare-state and other
institutional configurations as well as family policies can have on the short- and long-term
development of fertility.
Acknowledgement: I thank Tomáš Sobotka and Tomas Frejka for Figure 1 and the
permission to reproduce it in this paper, as well as Jan Hoem and Gunnar Andersson for
editorial advice.
References
Anttonen, A. and Sipilä, J. (1996). European social care services: Is it possible to identify
models?. Journal of European Social Policy 6(2): 87-100.
Arts, W. and Gelissen, J. (2002). Three worlds of welfare capitalism or more? A state-of-the-
art report. Journal of European Social Policy 12(2): 137-158.
Benner, M. and Vad, T.B. (2000). Sweden and Denmark: Defending the welfare state. In:
Scharpf, F.W. and Schmidt, V.A. (eds.). Welfare and Work in the Open Economy. Volume
II: Diverse Responses to Common Challenges in Twelve Countries. Oxford: Oxford
University Press: 399-466.
Bledsoe, C., Banja, R. and Hill, A.G. (1998). Reproductive mishaps and Western
contraception: An African challenge to fertility theory. Population and Development
Review 24(1): 15-57.
Boeri, T., Börsch-Supan, A. and Tabellini, G. (2001). Would you like to shrink the welfare
state. A survey of European citizens. Economic Policy 16(32): 9-50.
Bonoli, G. (2005). The politics of the new social policies: Providing coverage against new
social risks in mature welfare states. Policy & Politics 33(3): 431-449.
29
Bourdieu, P. (1996). On the family as a realized category. Theory, Culture & Society
13(3):19-26.
Castles, F.G. (2003). The world turned upside down: Below replacement fertility, changing
preferences and family-friendly public policy in 21 OECD countries. Journal of European
Social Policy 13(3): 209-227.
Castles, F.G. and Obinger, H. (2008). Worlds, families, regimes: Country clusters in
European and OECD area public policy. West European Politics 31(1-2): 321-344.
Cerami, A. and Vanhuysse, P. (eds.) (2009): Post-Communist Welfare Pathways. Theorizing
Social Policy Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe. New York: Palgrave
MacMillan.
Culpepper, P.D. (2007). Small states and skill specificity. Austria, Switzerland, and
interemployer cleavages in coordinated capitalism. Comparative Political Studies 40: 611-
637.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1999). Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Esping-Andersen, G. with Gallie, D., Hemerijk, A. and Myers, J. (2002). Why We Need a New
Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Estévez-Abe, M. (2005). Gender bias in skills and social policies: The varieties of capitalism
perspective on sex segregation. Social Politics 12(2): 180-215.
Estévez-Abe, M. (2009). Gender, inequality and capitalism: The “varieties of capitalism” and
women. Social Politics 16(2): 182-191.
Estévez-Abe, M., Iversen, T., and Soskice, D. (2001). Social protection and the formation of
skills. A reinterpretation of welfare state. In: Hall, P. and Soskice, D. (eds.). Varieties of
Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford
University Press: 145-183.
Ferrera, M. (1996). The ‚Southern Model„ of welfare in social Europe. Journal of European
Social Policy 6(1): 17-37.
Flora, P. and Heidenheimer, A. (1982). The historical core and changing boundaries of the
welfare state. In: Flora, P. and Heidenheimer, A. (eds.). The Development of Welfare States
in Europe and America. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers: 17-34.
Fraser, N. and Gordon, L. (1994). A geneology of dependence: Tracing a keyword of the U.S.
welfare state. Signs 9(2): 309-336.
Frejka, T. and Ross, J. (2001). Paths to subreplacement fertility: The empirical evidence. In:
Bulatao, R.A. and Casterline, J.B. (eds.): The Global Fertility Transition. Supplement to
Population and Development Review 27: 213-254.
30
Frejka, T. and Sobotka, T. (2008). Overview chapter 1: Fertility in Europe: Diverse, delayed
and below replacement. In: Frejka, T., Sobotka, T., Hoem, J.M. and Toulemon, L. (eds.).
Childbearing trends and policies in Europe. Demographic Research 19(3): 15-36.
Frejka, T., Sobotka, T., Hoem, J.M. and Toulemon, L. (Eds.). Childbearing trends and
policies in Europe. Volume 1-3. Demographic Research 19.
Gauthier, A.H. (2007). The impact of family policies on fertility in industrialized countries: A
review of the literature. Population and Policy Review 26: 323-346.
Goldscheider, F.K. (2000). Men, children and the future of the family in the third millennium.
Futures 32: 525-538.
Goldstein, J., Sobotka, T. and Jasilioniene, A. (2009). The end of „lowest-low“ fertility?
Population and Development Review 35(4): 663-699.
Gornick, J.C., Meyers, M.K. and Ross, K.E. (1997). Supporting the employment of mothers:
Policy variation across fourteen welfare states. Journal of European Social Policy 7(1): 45-
70.
Hall, P.A. (1993). Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state: The case of economic
policymaking in Britain. Comparative Politics 25(3): 275-296.
Hall, P.A. and Soskice, D. (2001). An introduction to varieties of capitalism. In: Hall, P.A.
and Soskice, D. (eds.). Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of
Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1-70.
Hoem, J.M. (2008). The impact of public policies on European fertility. In: Frejka, T.,
Sobotka, T., Hoem, J.M. and Toulemon, L. (eds.). Childbearing trends and policies in
Europe. Demographic Research 19(10): 249-259.
Hoem, J.M. and Mureşan, C. (2011). An extension of the conventional TFR. European
Journal of Population 27(4): 389-402.
Hoem, J.M., Neyer, G. and Andersson, G. (2006). Education and childlessness. The
relationship between educational field, educational level, and childlessness among Swedish
women born in 1955-59. Demographic Research 14(15):331-380.
Kalwij, A. (2010). The impact of family policy expenditure on fertility in Western Europe.
Demography 47(2): 503-519.
Korpi, W. (2000). Faces of inequality: Gender, class, and patterns of inequalities in different
types of welfare states. Social Politics 7(2): 127-189.
Knijn, T. and Kremer, M. (1997). Gender and the caring dimension of welfare states: Towards
inclusive citizenship. Social Politics 4(3): 328-361.
Leitner, S. (2003). Varieties of familialism. The caring function of the family in comparative
perspective. European Societies 5(4): 353-375.
Lewis, J. (1992). Gender and the development of welfare regimes. Journal of European
Social Policy 2(3): 159-173.
31
Mahoney, J. and Thelen, K. (2010). A theory of gradual institutional change. In: Mahoney, J.
and Thelen, K. (eds.). Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1-37
Mandel, H. and Semyonov, M. (2006). A welfare state paradox: State interventions and
women‟s employment opportunities in 22 countries. American Journal of Sociology 111(6):
1910-1949.
Mandel, H. and Shalev, M. (2009). Gender, class, and varieties of capitalism. Social Politics
16(2): 161-181.
Mayer, K.U. and Schoepflin, U. (1989). The state and the life course. Annual Review of
Sociology 15: 187-209.
Mayer, K.U. (2009). New directions in life course research. Annual Review of Sociology 35:
413-433.
McCall, L. and Orloff, A.S. (2005). Introduction to special issue of Social Politics: “Gender,
class, and capitalism”. Social Politics 12(2): 159-169.
McDonald, P. (2000). Gender equity theory in fertility transition. Population and
Development Review 26(3): 427-439.
McDonald, P. (2006). Low fertility and the state: The efficacy of policy. Population and
Development Review 32(3): 485-510.
McNicoll, G. (1994). Institutional analysis of fertility. Population Council Research Division
Working Paper 72.
McNicoll, G. (2001). Government and fertility in transitional and post-transitional societies.
In: Bulatao, R.A. and Casterline, J.B. (eds.): The Global Fertility Transition. Supplement to
Population and Development Review 27, Supplement: 129-159
McNicoll, G. (2009). Legacy, policy, and circumstance in fertility transition. Population and
Development Review 35(4): 777-794.
Neyer, G. (2003). Family policies and low fertility in Western Europe. Supplement to Volume
1, Journal of Population and Social Security: 46-93.
Neyer, G. (2005). Family policies in Western Europe. Fertility policies at the intersection of
gender, employment and care policies. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft:
91-102.
Neyer, G. (2011). Should governments in Europe be more aggressive in pushing for gender
equality to raise fertility? The second “No”. Demographic Research 24(10): 225-250.
Neyer, G. and Andersson, G. (2008). Consequences of family policies on childbearing:
Effects or artifacts? Population and Development Review 34(4): 699-724.
Neyer, G., Lappegård, T. and Vignoli, D. (2011). Gender equality and fertility: Which
equality matters? Stockholm Research Report on Demography SRRD_2011:9.
32
Neyer, G. and Hoem, J.M. (2008). Education and permanent childlessness: Austria vs.
Sweden. A research note. In: Surkyn, J., Deboorsere, P. and Van Bavel, J. (eds.).
Demographic Challenges for the 21st Century. A State of the Art in Demography. Brussels:
VUP Press: 91-112.
Orloff, A.S. (1993). Gender and the social rights of citizenship: The comparative analysis of
gender relations and welfare states. American Sociological Review 58(3): 303-328.
Palier, B. (ed.). (2010). A Long Goodbye to Bismarck? The Politics of Welfare Reform in
Continental Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Pierson, P. (1996). The new politics of the welfare state. World Politics 48(2): 143-179.
Pierson, P. (2001). Coping with permanent austerity. Welfare state restructuring in affluent
democracies. In: Pierson, P. (ed.). The New Politics of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford
University Press: 410-456.
Policies to reconcile labor force participation and childbearing in the European Union (2006).
Population and Development Review 32(2): 389-393.
Pontusson, J. (2000). Labor market institutions and wage distribution. In: Iversen, T.,
Pontussen, J. and Soskice, D. (eds.). Employment and Central Banks. Macroeconomic
Coordination and Institutional Change in Social Market Economies. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press: 292-330.
Rindfuss, R. and Brauner-Otto, S. (2008). Institutions at the transition to adulthood:
Implications for fertility tempo in low fertility settings. Vienna Yearbook of Population
Research: 57-87.
Rønsen, M. and Sundström, M. (2002). Family policy and after birth employment among new
mothers: A comparison of Finland, Norway and Sweden. European Journal of Population
18(2): 121-152.
Rubery, J. (2009). How gendering the varieties of capitalism requires a wider lens. Social
Politics 16(2): 192-203.
Sainsbury, D. (ed.) (1999). Gender and Welfare State Regimes. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Saraceno, C. (2011). Childcare needs and childcare policies: A multidimensional issue.
Current Sociology 59(1): 78-96.
Saraceno, C. and Keck, W. (2010). Can we identify intergenerational policy regimes in
Europe? European Societies 12(5): 675-696.
Scharpf, F.W. and Schmidt, V.A. (eds.) (2000). Welfare and Work in the Open Economy.
Volume I: From Vulnerability to Competitiveness in Comparative Perspective. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Sleebos, J. (2003). Low fertility rates in OECD countries: Facts and policy responses. OECD
Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers 15.
33
Sobotka, T., Skirbekk, V. and Philipov, D. (2011). Economic recession and fertility in the
developed world. Population and Development Review 37(2): 267-306.
Soskice, D. (2005). Varieties of capitalism and cross-national gender differences. Social
Politics 12(2): 170-179.
Szelewa, D.K. and Polakowski, M.P. (2008). Who cares? Changing patterns of childcare in
Central and Eastern Europe. Journal of European Social Policy 18(2): 115-131.
Szikra, D. and Tomka, B. (2009). Social policy in East Central Europe: Major trends in the
twentieth century. In: Cerami, A. and Vanhuysse, P. (eds.): Post-Communist Welfare
Pathways. Theorizing Social Policy Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe. New
York: Palgrave MacMillan: 17-34.
Spiess, C.K. (2012). Zeit, Geld, Infrastruktur und Fertilität: Befunde empirischer
Mikrostudien und was wir daraus lernen können. In: Bertram, H. and Bujard, M. (eds.).
Zeit, Geld, Infrastruktur – zur Zukunft der Familienpolitik. Soziale Welt, Sonderband 19:
321-336.
Taylor-Gooby, P. (ed.) (2004). New Risk, New Welfare. The Transformation of the European
Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thelen, K. (2012). Varieties of capitalism: Trajectories of liberalization and the new politics
of social solidarity. Annual Review of Political Science 15: 137-159. First published online
as a review in advance 2011.
Thévenon, O. (2008). Family policies in Europe: Available databases and initial comparisons.
Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2008: 165-177.
Thévenon, O. (2011). Family policies in OECD countries: A comparative analysis.
Population and Development Review 37(1): 57-87.
Thévenon, O. and Gauthier, A.H. (2011). Family policies in developed countries: A „fertility
booster‟ with side effects. Community, Work & Family 14(2): 197-216.
Wilensky, H. (1975). The Welfare State and Equality. Structural and Ideological Roots of
Public Expenditure. Berkeley: University of California Press.
United Nations (2001). National Population Policies 2001. New York: United Nations
Publications.
United Nations (2010). World Population Policies 2009. New York: United Nations
Publications.
Van Bavel, J. (2010). Subreplacement fertility in the West before the baby boom: Past and
current perspectives. Population Studies 64(1): 1-18.